28 February 2010

Starting yesterday (27-February), Tom and I embarked on a 21-day cleansing/purification process. The process (called “Standard Process”) involves lots of low-glycemic fruits and vegetables, plus twice-a-day fortified fruit smoothies. The first ten days are strictly vegetarian (although butter is encouraged in veggie prep), and starting on day 11, we can add moderate portions of lean meat and fish.

As is the case whenever you start something new, there is a learning curve at the front-end of the process. Our education involved the blender…

Since we are both doing the process, we doubled the recipe for the first smoothie, using 3 cups of frozen berries, about a cup of powdered stuff (protein and fiber) and some fish oil. The blender was fuller than I normally like for it to be, but when we fired it up, things worked fine – no splashes or eruptions. Tom got a wooden spoon and started pushing stuff down from the top to encourage the circulation that is desired in a blender.

Suddenly, there was a cacophony over by Tom and the blender, and as soon as I could turn around, the entire kitchen was dripping in raspberry-and-blueberry purple ooze. The official story is that the blender “sucked the spoon right out of [someone’s] hand”. I’m not sure the blender is THAT powerful, but nonetheless, the normally pale green and off-white kitchen now had berry accents all around.

The process also encourages increased levels of physical activity, and we both got a good workout wiping down all of the kitchen’s surfaces. The ceiling was the most challenging. Lessons learned: (1) Make one smoothie at a time, and (2) make sure the blender is OFF before inserting a wooden spoon.